View source for Fanning The Embers (9)

'''MONTANA ROUNDUP'''

By Geneva March

[[Fanning the Embers]], 1971, Range Rider Reps, Miles City, Montana

"Roll out!"

In the dim light of approaching dawn we faintly see the scattered tarp beds from which men begin sleepily emerging. Soon the camp is a "live outfit." In the lantern-lighted roundup tent the cook is tossing biscuits while keeping an alert eye on sizzling steak.

By the time the men have eaten a he-man's breakfast and each has packed his bed roll in the bed wagon, the cook gives the order, "Pull up 'er stakes!" and down comes the tent to be packed away in the mess wagon, followed by the stove in which the huge dinner roast is already baking. The cook with his retinue will soon be on the move to the next location.

The cowpunchers amble to the rope corral where the horse wrangler is holding the horses. When the men enter the corral with their twirling ropes, the horses that a moment before looked docile and gentle become wild eyed mustangs, crowding and circling the corral, trying in every way to evade that rope loop that comes hurtling through the air. As the loop tightens about the neck of the desired horse, he may plunge and rear but he soon quiets down and is led away to be bridled and saddled. Getting the horses always has its exciting moments, accompanied by much good natured joshing ; there is rivalry in throwing the rope, some bronc may get on the fight, again another horse may be spooky about being saddled, If it's a nippy morning, we can count on a few bucking exhibitions. We hear cries of, "Ride 'em, cowboy!" "Scratch 'em! - "Pick out your sagebrush!" and "Hold his head up!"

The man or company who owns the majority of the cattle running on this particular range, employs most of the roundup crew and owns and operates the wagon. Ranchers who have small cattle herds on the range and representatives, "reps", form neighboring cow outfits make up the rest of the crew. The "Reps" come to locate their strayed cattle and to bring them back to the home range. The roundup usually starts about the second week in June, depending upon weather and range conditions. The time and place is set beforehand so all interested can be there. The number of men meeting varies according to the size of the range but the present day roundup, which lasts only a few days, has a much smaller crew than the working crews of former days.

The sun, peeking over the shale buttes, finds the men with the circle leader ready to ride away from camp. The cowpunchers with their lean, hard-muscled bodies and darkened faces, that show a constant buffeting of wind, sun, and winter sleet, are dressed in their chaps, high-heeled boots with spurs, and broad brimmed Stetsons.

The circle leader gives his instructions, "Slim and Bill, go to head of Moon creek. Shep, start down the big canyon from the hogsback. We will gather at the forks of Deer creek" and so on. The men separate to ride out the different sections of range. The men must be alert and thorough in their drives as it is no easy task to find the cattle in the roughs of the badlands, in pockets. or in the pines. The riders are to bring all cattle to a designated place.

We ride along with the horse wrangler as he trails the saddle horses to the new camp site. We move slowly, letting the horses graze. The horse wrangler's duties are to trail the horses from one round-up site to another, to have the horses corralled when the men are ready for fresh horses, to herd the horses as they graze on the range and to keep the cook supplied with wood and water. At the small roundups of today the few horses can usually be kept at night inside fenced enclosures or in a nearby corral.

About noon we see a cloud of dust in the sky so we know the men are trailing in with the "dogies". In a short while the round-up ground is crowded with hundreds of hot. dusty, lustily bawling cattle. Leaving a few men to hold herd, the rest lope their horses to the chuck wagon where the cook, in his white apron and cap, is already

calling, "Come and' get it, 'fore I throw it out!" What a meal! The hungry men eat heartily of the roast beef, potatoes and gravy, cooked dried fruits, together with those inevitable beans -- the cowboy's staff of life.

The experiences of the morning furnish meal time conversation. One cowboy is "ragged" for reaching for the saddle horn but finding a cactus patch, another tells of the strategy used for a cow "on the prod", while the prize story is told by the cowpuncher who roped a steer, had his saddle jerked off and was left "plumb afoot!" We hear no complaining from sullen men but a wholesome, jovial spirit prevails in spite of the long hours they have already spent in the saddle and the hard work yet ahead of them.

Again the horse wrangler has the horses in the corral where the men who need fresh mounts rope horses from their respective "Strings". Each man riding in the roundup brings and uses his own saddle horses, these horses are called his "string". Today a man needs only two or three horses while in former days each cowboy usually needed ten horses in his "string".

When the men return to the roundup grounds they find the cattle more quiet, each calf having found his mother. On the grounds are several fires where branding irons are being heated to a cherry red so they will blister the hide quickly but will not cause a deep burn.

Cowboys are stationed at the cattle fringe to "hold herd" while others begin riding through the cattle herd "cutting" or sorting the various brands. As the brands are sorted the cattle bearing the same brand are held in separate small groups apart from the main herd. that is, all cattle bearing the brand T-7 (T bar 7) are in one group while all cattle with the brand N/ C (N slash C) are in another group. During this sorting the calves will follow their mothers.

A calf's chief worry in life thus far has been to locate his mother at meal time but today he is to have many new and painful experiences.

Working the largest herd first, a few of the best ropers ride through the herd, deftly and quietly throwing their rope loops so that they "neck" or "heel" a calf. A saddle horse, feeling the rope grow taut, will start toward the fires, dragging the calf. When the calf approaches the scene of operations a cowboy will hurry out to "flank" it and often it is a veritable wrestling match with a question as to who will come out on top-cowboy or calf. The calf is stretched out on his proper side with one man at his head and another holding his hind legs, a man comes running with a hot branding iron, at the same time another cowpuncher is injecting for blackleg and then cutting the proper earmark-if it's a bull calf, another cowboy will be doing the castrating. Only a few minutes elapse from the time a calf is roped until he is released to run back to the herd, as each man has his appointed task at which he is both quick and adept. There are several groups of men, each, working on a calf, so a number of calves are being branded at the same time.

To an observer on the grounds, the scene is thrilling, exciting and one of general pandemonium. A cloud of dust, kicked up by the milling, bawling cattle, hovers over the whole scene, and, mingled with the smell of wood smoke from the fires is the pungent smell of singeing hair. Often, one of the men holding herd has to put his horse on a dead run after a calf that has broken away from the group of cattle and is taking to the hills, fleet as an antelope. Occasionally, to add to the excitement, a cow will follow her calf to the fire where she may charge the men hurting her baby. If the cow happens to have long, wicked horns, the cowboys move pronto. When all calves have been branded, the cattle are allowed to go back on the range.

Studying the brands of the West is an interesting subject; one soon learns there is a story behind the origin of most brands. Before a brand can be used, it (burned brand and ear-mark) must be approved and recorded by the State Livestock Association. A brand is then an individual's or company's copyrighted trademark. A brand may be made with a stamp iron which burns on the entire symbol with one process or it may be drawn on the animal with a straight or running iron. Today one finds the stamp iron used almost exclusively as it takes a skilled hand to "run" a good brand with a straight

iron. Brands are difficult to read if one is not familiar with this form of Western hieroglyphic language. Brands are read from top to bottom and from right to left - M 0 is read bar MO; they may consist of numbers, letters, squares, crosses, bars, circles and many other shapes or a brand may take the form of an object such as a chair or a star. A number or a letter in a brand that is in a horizontal position is "Lazy" <graphic not computer printable> is read lazy A six. The earmark is put on for another form of identification ; it is especially helpful in winter when the long hair partly obliterates the brand. There are various earmarks made by slitting, cropping or notching the ears. A wattle, made by cutting a strip of hide on neck, lower jaw or dewlap, is another form of identification that is sometimes used.

That evening, after a long hard day's work, we find the men stretched out about a campfire. A couple of the boys are practicing on their harmonicas while the rest are listening attentively to Hank, one of the "old-timers", relate of the days when roundups were huge affairs, giving employment to many cowboys.

As we listen, we learn that the roundup today, with its one wagon and comparatively few men and horses, is but a remnant of the roundup of the good old days before fences checkered the country, practically destroying the open range. The rivalry for grazing land between the large cow outfits and the small rancher with his homestead rights has put an end to the "long drive".

Back in the real cattle days-let us say, before 1910 - the owners of the large herds would meet to map out the country to be rounded up and to decide on the dates and places for the different wagons to join the others. The wagons would leave the home ranch about the middle of May. Seldom was there one wagon alone on the general roundup but usually five or six wagons would work together each wagon had its own cook, horse wrangler, night hawk, camp tender and 15 to 20 wagon men supplemented by "reps" and owners of small herds. As each cowboy had a "string" of ten or more horses it made a group of from two to three hundred horses for each wagon. The men would move from one range to another, gathering strays, checking on winter loss and putting cattle back on the home ranges. The general roundup would probably cover a hundred mile square. Natural boundaries such as rivers or mountains usually determined the extent of the grazing areas to be covered.

The general roundup would come to a close just before the fourth of July. Many of the cowboys would take part in a rodeo, which is an outgrowth of the roundup, where they would show their skill at roping calves, riding bucking broncs, bulldogging steers, horse racing and like activities. After giving the boys a week or so in which to celebrate, the wagon with its crew would again be at work branding calves but this time each wagon would work alone on its home range.

Old Hank says that in the years of the "long drive" there was no drought but roundup days were usually accompanied by a slow, steady drizzle of rain. The "night hawks", huddled in their slickers, had some real experiences on the rainy nights when, it being impossible for them to see through the thick, inky blackness, they had to depend on the tinkling bells of the bell horses for information of the remuda. It was an eerie scene when the lightning would streak across the sky, the electrified air causing sparks to show on a cow's horn or a ball of fire to appear on a horse's ear. The wet weather would make the cook "plumb ornery" as at that time he carried no stove but all cooking and baking was done in dutch ovens placed over an open pit fire.

The cowboy, then, led a very busy life as hardly would the general roundup and branding be over before it was time to start on the beef ride. Now the men would gather fat steers and cows for shipping, then trail the cattle to a railroad many times, a distance of over a 100 miles. On trail, a herd will average about 12 miles a day, the distance depending upon the water holes.

From Old Hank and his cronies we hear many exciting tales about the treacherous Powder River with its mean current and quick sands. During the spring the river would swim a horse and to get cattle across was a difficult and tedious task. Many a cowboy has crossed the old Powder by hanging to the tail of his swimming' horse.

As the men about the fire listen to the older men relate experiences of former days, they regret the coming of the fences, the result of the plow and the general exodus of cattle because of drought and grasshoppers. They know that it may be only a few years before the open range, the mess wagon, the exciting cowboy life, will have entirely disappeared; in its place the ranchers, with their comparatively small herds, will have the cattle brought in from the fenced pastures and branding and similar operations will be done by a few men at the home corrals. In many sections of the cow country, the open range is already a thing of the past.

When night begins drawing its curtain, the men know the reminiscing must end. Each is soon fast asleep on the tarpaulin beds scattered here and there on the ground. It will not be long before the cook, who has been asleep for hours, will again break the stillness of the early June morning with his shouted command of "Roll out!"